


kick your pretty feet up on my dash

by CoffeeStars



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Bakery AU, M/M, Mutual Pining, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Retirement, it's cheesy and that's how I like it, original....grandma character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 01:43:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18356033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeStars/pseuds/CoffeeStars
Summary: Sidney doesn't mean to run away to Oregon. It kind of just happens.





	kick your pretty feet up on my dash

**Author's Note:**

> Header made by the lovely @withlovefromfeona

__

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

_Part 1_

 

 

 

 

Sidney retires a little earlier than he thought he would, at age 34.

 

He retreats into a small town in Oregon. It’s not a hockey town. No one knows who Sidney Crosby is, and it’s an unexpected blessing.

 

He hadn’t meant to land in Cardwell Point. It’s a little vacation-ville that boasts an annual fair every summer; it has an artificial lake, a small, quiet cabin that Sidney now calls home, a garden where he can grow tomatoes (that refuses to grow), and friendly enough neighbors who are all, for the most part, below the age of 18 or over 60 and have been in the town for about three centuries. It’s far enough away from Pittsburgh, he supposes, so that’s a plus.

 

He knows the organization had expect him to stay, working with the team as a coach or at least for the sake of the Little Penguins program. He remembers the looks they’d given him when he’d broken the news to the front office. But it hurts more than it should, being so close to  ~~Geno~~  hockey and not able to do anything about it.

 

Maybe his heart has gotten softer with age.

 

Maybe that’s why he packed so quickly, because when Geno asked him so mournfully, “Where you gonna be?” on his last day, he’d nearly changed his mind.

 

“I’ll let you know,” Sidney promises. A little white lie.

 

“You tell me soon, or I find you,” Geno says fiercely.

 

Geno had hugged him like he didn’t want to let go, and perhaps he lingered a bit. But Sidney had simply chalked it up to him projecting. As usual.

 

He’s spent the majority of his time in the NHL hoping for a man to love him back. He’d wanted the handholding, the late night, date night kisses on an empty street, and he’d been willing to wait years for it— _did_ wait years for it. He had been ecstatic when they gave the C to Geno, finally. His heart had lurched forward, almost painfully, when Geno beamed at him, shy and determined under the weight of the letter, and Sidney tells himself that he’s happy. He ishappy. He  _will_  be happy.

 

“So what’s next?” Flower asks, voice choppy (always) through the phone.

 

He figured he’d get a dog or something, maybe spend his hours fishing and not thinking about hockey or Geno or what anyone must think about him practically vanishing.

 

He did  _not_ imagine that he’d be dragging himself up at 4 in the morning, post-retirement, to a bakery that must’ve been in this town when Christ himself was born, to be up to his elbows with flour and butter. The owner, Deidre, is 68 years old, had laughed in his face when she first met him, squeezed in the corner of her café and brooding over his coffee, when he’d told her that he’s retired.

 

“What the hell do you mean, retired? You’re about 18, right?”

 

Sidney knows he looks nowhere near 18, but Deidre also doesn’t look she’s got the best eyesight around, so.

 

It takes about four more coffee runs, three “on the house” chess pies that Deidre insists on feeding him, and two times of Sidney helping her transporting bags of flour from the truck to the kitchen when she’d been short-staffed, that he realizes he’s accidentally stumbled into a some sort of volunteer-job hybrid.

 

But he likes it.

 

He has the time, and Deidre needs the help even if she won’t admit it. He likes listening to Deidre talk about the town and her husband (who hasn’t been alive since 2013, Sidney realizes way too late, when he makes the blunder of asking where he is—to which Deidre responds, ‘Who the hell knows. Fucking around up there, probably’) and her dry humor. He likes bringing out the trays of brioche rolls and learning the names of the regulars, from the adults stumbling in at 6:30 AM for their morning coffee, to the kids who come into the store for their afterschool cookies. (He endures the moms who—not subtly—tries to flirt with him while taking half the day to buy a dozen muffins.) He likes kneading the dough for the tarts, because it helps him forget about all those warnings the doctors said about how if he kept going, hockey’s going to knock out his knee once and for all and he’d be lucky to be able to walk at all.

 

Deidre asked him how he ended up at Cardwell Point, just once.

 

“You running away from home?” she asks, very seriously. Her glasses are sliding off her nose. “Don’t you lie to me. I’ll know.”

 

“Not really?” He’d kind of googled ‘small town’ and ‘West Coast’ and ‘house for sale,’ because ‘where to go after retiring at age 34’ hadn’t given him a lot of useful results (or any).

 

“This is a very small town, and I know this because I never left this place,” Deidre says. “No one comes here unless they were trying to get away from somewhere. A girlfriend, maybe?”

 

Before Sidney can say anything, she quickly adds, “Boyfriend?”

 

His hands stop for a briefly moment, but he catches himself and gets back into the rhythm of piping the cupcake. “Um.”

 

“Anyways,” Deidre says, already moving on and washing her hands, “I’ve been thinking of naming the desserts. Like a person name. I think it’d give them character, help them sell better. I’d want to name a cheesecake after my mother—that was her favorite thing to make when I was little, but I never really got the hang of messing around with cream cheese. What do you think?”

 

Sidney nods because it doesn’t matter to him either way. He’s suddenly struck with the fact that he hasn’t called Geno in weeks, even though he told Geno he would right after he’s settled in. And Geno hasn’t texted either, which aches like a dull, forgotten thing at the pit of his stomach.

 

He doesn’t have the heart to be the one to break their silence streak, because there’s a tiny part of him that’s still that afraid if he hears Geno’s voice, sounding so far away, he’d want to fly right back where he started, to break his heart all over again.

 

One afternoon, he’s making tags for the mini cakes and cookies with Deidre when, out of the blue, he blurts out, “I, uh, I really wasn’t lying. I had to leave my job because of medical reasons. My knee, it’s not—I can’t strain it too much. And um—he wasn’t a boyfriend. It wasn’t…it wasn’t ever going to happen.”

 

He kind of wants Deidre to spit out some sage, grandmotherly advice, not unlike a fortune cookie. He could use a fortune cookie. She has four kids, after all, all scattered in cities across the East Coast or the Bay Area, working in tech or finance or whatever the hell she had said. But she merely pats his arm and nods.

 

“Well, you have Cardwell Point now, if you want it,” she says, finishing up the lettering on her sign with a loopy ‘y’ for Lily. “There. My mother’s name. This one will be for the mini-cheesecakes. When I figure out how to make them right.”

 

He doesn’t know if that’s what he’s waiting for. But he’s spent so long chasing after things he can’t have that Deidre unofficially gifting him Cardwell Point makes his chest bubble up with something wonderful. He ducks his head low and finishes up cursive ‘a’ on his own card.

 

Day 65 into retirement, and Sidney doesn’t write a tell-all, post-retirement article about his life and regrets like what Deadspin is probably salivating for. (To be fair, Sidney doesn’t even know who to go to first to start publishing something like that.)

 

It’s way worse.

 

He opens an Instagram account.

 

**@DeesBakeryCafe**

_Come in to see us and these lemon-curd filled, poppy seed muffins (The Trina) tomorrow! Happy Friday, everyone._

 

The muffins are artfully placed next to the window seat, where the sunlight gleams off the drizzled glaze. It gets 56 likes, which Sidney honestly believes might be just about the general portion of the town who have working smartphones and knows how to use it.

 

To Sidney’s surprise, they sell out the next day. Seeing Deidre’s display case empty at least an hour before they close and listening to Deidre chatter excitedly over their next seasonal item feels almost as exhilarating as winning a game. Maybe even just as good.  

 

He only wishes he’d stop wondering what Geno would say if he knows what Sidney is up to. If he’d even want to know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Part 2_

 

Two days after the Instagram account opens, Sidney unofficially gets put on naming duty.

 

The strawberry shortcake biscuit is named  _The Taylor_.

 

The cream cheese-stuffed banana muffins, crusted with dark chocolate ganache, is  _The Fleury._

 

The slice of warm spiced peach cobbler (available for just two weeks), topped with a generous portion of thick, whipped cream and vanilla ice cream, is  _The Deidre_.

 

He shares the account password with her, but she seems more interested in digging up her mom’s old recipes from an ancient box filled with yellowed index cards than photographing.

 

“I’ll leave that up to you,” she says, then passes him a card titled, ‘Cherry Layer Chocolate Cake.’ “I think I’ll make this for the holidays. What do you think?”

 

Deidre makes just one and a half cakes for a trial run (the other half, which had come out lopsided, is sitting in the back of Sidney’s fridge). It’s another instant hit.

 

Sidney watches a couple, two teenagers who are making it pretty painfully obvious that they’re on their first date, split a slice in a corner seat. She’s chasing the cherry around the plate with her fork, and he watching her like she hung the literal moon. He laughs a little too hard at her jokes, his eyes crinkling like Geno’s when he’s chirping Sidney. But with the way she’s beaming, it’s clear that she doesn’t mind at all.

 

He’s not jealous—or, at least, he doesn’t think he’s jealous. Having hockey and having a boyfriend have always been mutually exclusive. But now, with no obligations to the NHL, he’s supposedly free to do everything that he’s wanted to. He doesn’t dwell too long on it though, because the last thing he needs is to have an existential spiral in Deidre’s store over whether or not he’s missed his his golden hour to be happy the exact minute the Penguins drafted him all those years ago.

 

He finishes lettering the card for the cherry chocolate cake and slides ‘ _The Jack’_ neatly into its proper holder.

 

 

-

 

 

Geno calls him on Thursday nights now, like clockwork. He’s grateful for the routineness of it, especially when he knows how much Geno lives on spontaneity. It’s always the same—updates on how the team is doing (good, the weather over in Pittsburgh (not so good), another dumb prank the rookies are trying to pull (hilarious, but slightly unoriginal with the shaving cream), even though it’ll never be as good as the ones Flower used to plan.

 

“How are you?” Geno asks one night, while Sidney is puttering around the kitchen to figure out what he wants to make for dinner. “Your tomatoes grow?”

 

“I think those are a goner,” Sidney grimaces. The entire plant had shriveled up weeks ago, despite Sidney faithfully watering them. “Guess I’ll just have to stick with the storebought ones.”

 

Geno is silent for a bit. Then, “Is quiet in locker room without you.”

 

Sidney pauses. “I doubt that’s true.” There’s plenty of rookies every year, eager to prove themselves on the ice and to establish themselves as a personality on the team. Besides, Sidney has never been the life of the party—that’s always been Geno himself.

 

“No, is quieter.” Geno sounds like he’s swallowing a yawn. “Different without you.”

 

Sidney’s heart flounders, and he has to blink a couple of times before his throat unclogs. “Maybe you should get to sleep. It’s pretty late over there.”

 

“No, I’m not tired,” Geno mumbles, sounding very drowsy. Sidney can almost picture Geno, hair-mussed and sleepy eyes about to close as he curls up on his mattress. “Want to keep talking.”

 

“I know you have practice tomorrow, G,” Sidney says. “You have the C now, you can’t get there two hours late anymore.”

 

“I’m never late,” Geno huffs. “You too early.”

 

“Get some rest,” Sidney says gently. “I’ll still be here next week, same as usual.”

 

“Maybe I call tomorrow.’

 

“I won’t go anywhere.”

 

“Wish you still here, Sid,” he murmurs. “Miss you so bad, some days.”

 

Sidney doesn’t miss a beat. “I miss you, too,” he whispers, because any louder and he knows his voice will crack. “I’ll be here tomorrow. And the day after, if you still want to call.”

 

“Okay,” Geno says. “Okay.”

 

 

-

 

 

Sidney’s restocking the brioche rolls when Deidre’s voice casually pipes up from the coffee machine, “You have a secret admirer, you know.”

 

“I know. It’s Samantha. PTA President,” Sidney says, trying to not sound exasperated. He only knows her name and title because she must’ve giggled it at him as a greeting every single time she’s marched in. “She asked me what the main ingredient was in the banana muffins and I told her banana like, three times.”

 

“She just likes to hear you say banana. And no, it’s not Sam.” Deidre makes a come hither motion with her hands and slides a napkin towards Sidney. “Yesterday afternoon, there was a young man, maybe around his 30s, who stopped by for a latte and he asked where you were.”

 

“Oh.” There’s something he can’t name fluttering in his stomach. The words on the napkin scrawled out,  _Jeremy,_ and a string of numbers. “What did you say?”

 

“I told him, ‘He’s a cute one, isn’t he? He’s the store eye candy, bringing in all the sales.’”

 

“Dee, you  _didn’t_.”

 

“I did, and he went full red. It was adorable. And I told him that you pop in in the mornings and in the afternoon to help with opening and closing.” She leans forward, grinning. “I’m just saying, think about it.”

 

He thinks about it.

 

At night, he tells Geno, “I think I have a secret admirer. Or a stalker.”

 

Geno’s voice suddenly becomes infinitely more awake. “Have  _what_? Someone stand outside your house? I read about this before, you need call police.”

 

“No, it was at the bakery. I got his number on a napkin. Well, the owner gave me his name on a napkin, so I don’t really know what he looks like. He could be 100. People in this town are usually…around that age range.”

 

Geno still sounds perplexed. “So say no.”

 

“What?”

 

“Say sorry, only go on dates with girls. But thank you.”

 

Sidney’s brain feels like it’s stuttering to a pause. “Geno, what the fuck?”

 

“What?”

 

“I don’t ‘only go on dates with girls.’ I—” Well, to be quite fair, he hasn’t gone on any dates at all. “You know this.”

 

It takes a full ten seconds for Geno to crackled back to life on the line again. His voice is hesitant. “You only bring girls to events. Like Halloween, or—”

 

“They’re my  _friends_ , I’ve told you. I’m not going to bring a guy in front of you guys,” he exclaims, then reigns in his voice. His heart is beating like a jackhammer boring straight through. “Hey, listen, I have a pretty early day tomorrow, I’ll talk to you next week, okay?”

 

“Sid, wait—”

 

He hangs up and puts his phone face down on the nightstand. It’s not his proudest moment.

 

 

-

 

 

 _I’m sorry(((_ , the text reads. The timestamp indicates that the message had been sent at 2 AM.  _You should go on a date with secret guy. Maybe he’s secret Ryan Reynolds._

Geno’s texts are never longer than five words, usually cryptic versions of a yes or no, accompanied by eyeless smilies. Sidney wonders if he’d been painstakingly worrying over each word since Sidney hastily ended the conversation.

 

 _I don’t think he’s Ryan Reynolds_ , Sidney sends back.  _Besides, no one in this town knows hockey. That’s gonna be a problem._

Geno’s reply is instantaneous, as if he’d been waiting.

 

_Picky)))))_

 

More messages follow in quick succession, before Sidney can even start typing. 

 

_But always best for u. Deserve the best only._

 

He laces up his shoes and heads to Dee’s.

 

 

-

 

 

It snows a little mid-December.

 

He helps Deidre with the decorations, hanging up tinsel and little snowflake cutouts on the window. She has a box of Christmas lights stored away in a dusty box from the attic, which definitely looks like they haven’t been disturbed since the 80s, but the one of the bulbs dies with a sad fizz the moment Sidney plugs it in. So they have to make do with the other nonflammable options.

 

The store looks nice. ‘Well-loved’ is a better word for it, with its mismatched decorations and ancient garlands. He snaps a photo of the mini tree on the counter for Instagram before he goes to help Deidre frost the rest of the ornament-shaped sugar cookies.

 

There’s commotion on the streets from all the tourists and families coming back for the holidays. He thinks about flying to Nova Scotia for the holidays, but then he realizes that none of Deidre’s children will be coming to Cardwell Point.

 

“They’re busy,” she shrugs indifferently, but she turns her back to Sidney as she busies herself with rearranging the shelfs. “It’s alright. That’s what Skype is for, right? Besides, I have to watch the store.”

 

He thinks about Geno, who’s probably headed to Florida soon to escape the onslaught of winter chill that he absolutely abhors, no matter how much he loves the city. He could Skype Geno, or Facetime him. Except Geno would always have the angle wrong, and Sidney’s sure he’d just get an on-brand mugshot of Geno’s nostril from the bottom up for the whole conversation. 

 

He did ask Sidney if he wanted to go to Florida, except the way he had asked had felt like a given tagged with a question mark at the end ( _Florida w me this year?_ ). Nonetheless, Sidney had been tempted.

 

But he also wonders if he’d feel even more homesick when Geno is physically standing in front of him again, all tall and loud and too big, too much, too many years of his unrequited love staring at him and making Sidney think that he has a chance. He doesn’t want to go to Florida to watch Geno pick up strangers at a club.

 

“I’m not going anywhere, either,” he tells her.

 

She looks over, finally, pursing her lips like she’s trying to hold back her smile.

 

 

**@DeesBakeryandCafe**

_Season’s greetings and a happy New Year to our wonderful customers and families here in Cardwell Point. Hope everyone is spending time with their loved ones this holiday season._

 

 

_-_

 

Winter refuses to go. The clouds hang over the streets stubbornly, and each days trudges on like it’s dragging its feet.

 

He misses skating.

 

He misses Geno. Especially as it gets closer to February and teenagers and adults alike start coming to the shop in twos, their gloved hands clasped together as they squeeze through Dee’s tiny corridor when it’s really much easier to be in a single-file line.

 

He’s  ~~not~~  jealous. He is  _ ~~not~~_.

 

But he is lonely. And really fucking cold.

 

He serves up at least thirty slices of  _The Jack_ , which is apparently the most popular item these days thanks to Instagram. Deidre switches up the decoration, so the cherry-glazed design in the middle forms a big, gaudy heart. The Internet completely eats up. Sidney doesn’t understand it.

 

“It’s like a Titanic reference, right?” a customer asks, as he picks up the cake for his wife. “Like, an ‘I’ll never let you go,’ kind of thing. Jack and Rose?”

 

“Sure,” Sidney says. It’s really for his first childhood crush, but he can work with the Titanic.

 

The moment Deidre fills her last custom order of  _The Jack_ (and there had been plenty of those, for anniversaries to birthdays to just becauses), she tells Sidney that she’s figured out how to make her mother’s cheesecake.

 

“Finally worked out how to stop the goddamn filling from clotting,” she says, cutting him a slice. The cake has a brownie bottom, and the inside is perfectly creamy and smooth and dotted with dark chocolate chips. “What do you think?”

 

“I’m biased,” Sidney says, trying to not scarf down the whole thing like an animal. “I love cheesecakes. This one is my favorite so far.”

 

“Good,” she tells him. “You can name this one, then.”

 

His fork stops mid-air. “Weren’t you going to call it ‘ _The Lily’_?”

 

She pats his arm affectionately, not unlike the day she did when Sidney told her why he ended up at Cardwell Point. “I figured she wouldn’t mind. This can be our second February special. God, I’m sick of  _The Jack_.”

 

The next week, Sidney carefully slides  _The Geno_ in its display cabinet.

 

(Deidre doesn’t ask about the peculiar name. She never does, and Sidney is grateful.)

 

After over a decade in the NHL, he’s well aware of what he can and can’t have. But lately he’s been feeling selfish. He snaps a photo of the cheesecake and sends it to Deidre.

 

It’s a good photo.

 

 

-

 

 

“I got invited to a neighborhood potluck yesterday,” Sidney mumbles into the receiver, when Flower asks him how retirement is treating him. “I don’t know what to bring. Maybe I’ll bring something from the bakery.”

 

“Do you officially work at the bakery or are you just there because the owner is blackmailing you? Does she know who you are?”

 

“I just help out when I can. And no, I told you, it’s not a hockey town. They do have competitive knitting here. It’s a thing.” Sidney doesn’t have much to do these days, aside from working out and catching up on reading, which means that he does end up doing most of the latter in the café. Maybe  _he_ should take up competitive knitting. “I started an Instagram for her shop. We just hit 200 followers.”

 

“You know how to do that?” Flower asks, because he’s a little shit. “I’m kidding, I know you’re not actually a senior citizen.”

 

Sidney rolls his eyes. “I haven’t checked it in a while though. I let Deidre handle the posting now. It’s her shop, anyways.”

 

“What’s the handle?”

 

He tells him. Flower is quiet for a bit as he searches through the page. “Pretty cool, eh?”

 

“Yeah,” Flower says, his voice slightly off. “Yeah, it’s—it’s good. Looks like the real deal.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course it’s the real deal.”

 

Flower makes a noncommittal noise. “Nothing. Cheesecake looks good. Does Geno know?”

 

“No,” Sidney says. “I mentioned the bakery once or twice. He didn’t ask. Not, uh—not after I told him about Jeremy.”

 

“Secret napkin man?” Flower remembers. “You didn’t go on that date?”

 

“No, I didn’t go on a date with ‘secret napkin man,’” he mimics. “I don’t think he’d care.”

 

“I think he’d care.” Flower always sounds so sure when he wants to be serious, and it’s one of the things Sidney missed most when he left for Vegas—there’d been a metaphorical hollow within the team for a good few months following his departure, and that void never quite got replaced no matter what.  

 

“Maybe.”

 

Sidney can only hope. But he’s a little too old for hoping these days.

 

 

-

 

 

Foot traffic is slower when they hit March, but Deidre promises that it’ll pick up when Cardwell Point’s 11th Annual Theater Festival starts in the middle of the month, because that’s apparently the other big thing aside from the 4th of July Carnival Bash. Sidney has just packed up another dozen of red velvet cupcakes for Samantha the PTA Queen when the front bell jingles.

 

“Hello? I’m look for—”

 

Sidney heart leaps to his throat.

 

“Sid,” Geno says softly. He looks like the wind knocked him in (it probably had), mismatched Frakenshirts and all. “Hi, Sid.”

 

Samantha may as well not have even walked into the store at all.

 

“How are—“ He must be imagining things. But Geno takes another step, until he’s right in front of the counter and Sidney can reach out and touch just how real he is. He hasn’t changed much–still the same eyes, the same nose and lips, and maybe his hair is a bit thinner but he still makes Sidney’s chest feel too small and too big all at once. “Where did you—how are you  _here_?”

 

“Fly,” Geno says sheepishly. “Wanted to see you.”

 

“What about—”

 

“No games until Friday.” He’s staring at Sidney like he’s looking his fill and he can’t get enough. “I—I see your post, and I just—buy ticket.”

 

“What post?”

 

Geno pulls out his phone and flips through it until he lands at a familiar Instagram account. He passes it over to Sidney, his hands warm as it brushes against Sidney’s fingers.

 

**@DeesBakeryCafe**

_‘I love you’ tastes a lot like our chocolate chip cheesecake,_ The Geno _._

 

“Oh,” Sidney breathes. “Oh.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Part 3 – It’ll Be_

 

 

 

 

 

Sidney thinks he could’ve stood there for an eternity.

 

Samantha coughs from the side, a little impatiently. “Sid,” she says, her eyebrows raised as she glances at Geno.

 

“Oh! Oh, I—here. Have a nice day.” He tapes the cupcake box shut and hands it over to her, and she leaves the store with the bell jingling behind her.

 

Geno turns his head to watch her go, conflicted and almost worried. “She’s—”

 

“Customer,” Sidney says quickly. “Samantha. PTA President.”

 

“PTA—” Geno repeats, confused. “Like, school?”

 

“Yeah, there’s an elementary school here,” Sidney says, then feels like a dummy. There’s an elementary school in every town. “Geno, that photo—”

 

“Sidney, did Samantha leave yet?” Deidre calls from the kitchen. He hears her footsteps get closer. “If she tries to give me more advice on how to make my cupcakes, I swear I’ll—” She stops abruptly at the sight of Geno, her expression morphing into back neutral politeness. “Oh, hello! Welcome! I’m Deidre. How can I help you, handsome?”

 

Oh,  _God_. “Dee, this is—”

 

Geno’s already extending his hand. “I’m Geno. Nice to meet.”

 

Her eyes widen. “ _You’re_ Geno? Sidney’s Geno?”

 

Sidney’s face feels like it’s on fire. “He’s not—”

 

“Sidney, why don’t you take Geno around the block to that ice cream place on First? I can handle the shop by myself for the rest of the day.”

 

“It’s okay, he’s just—”

 

“Ice cream, Sid,” she insists, ushering him out from behind the counter. “Show him the ice cream store.”

 

Deidre’s already waving at them from inside the store when she successfully maneuvers both Sidney and Geno out on the street.  _Ice cream store_ , she mouths at them with a grin, pointing helpfully to their right.

 

Sidney sighs and looks up at Geno with a ‘what can you do?’ expression. “Let’s go to the ice cream store then.” Geno used to demolish milkshakes when they were both rookies anyways, out late at some fast food chain that he convinced Sidney to go to past curfew. He’d probably enjoy this.

 

“I love ice cream,” Geno says earnestly, without taking his eyes off Sidney.

 

 

-

 

 

Geno orders cookies and cream, two scoops in a cone, with a healthy drizzle of chocolate sauce and extra crushed Oreos. Sidney opts for vanilla, no toppings, in a cup. It almost feels like the date they never had (the same one Sidney has on replay in his mind on lonely afternoons as he walks home from the bakery), if Geno ever liked him the way Sidney liked him.

 

“Boring,” Geno says, chasing the dripping ice cream by plastering his mouth against the waffle cone. He looks like a walrus. “They have ice cream with  _four_ colors.”

 

“Neither of us are twenty anymore,” Sidney says, halfheartedly digging into his cup. “Besides, I don’t work out like I used to, and—wait, you shouldn’t be eating this either. I  _know_ that’s not on your diet plan.”

 

“I’m on vacation,” Geno teases. “Let me have fun.”

 

“It’s in the middle of the season.”

 

“Like I say, no game until Frid—”

 

“I know, G. But—” Sidney’s fingers drum lightly against the table, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do. “You skipped town in the middle of the week. Does anyone know?”

 

Geno remains quiet, confirming his suspicions.

 

“Oh my God, G, you can’t—”

 

“It’s just quick trip, one day, be back soon.” He looks like a scolded child—petulant in spite of everything. “I want to see you.”

 

“You could’ve seen me after the season,” Sidney says gently. “You know I’ll always be here.” For you, he thinks, but what ends up coming out of his mouth is, “In Oregon.”

 

Geno stews over this. “Why you pick Oregon?”

 

“I figured The Oregon Trail was a thing for a reason,” he tries, but the reference must’ve flown over Geno’s head. He shrugs. “I don’t know. I—I really don’t know.”

 

Because it had been the farthest place he could think of. Because he needed time away from Pittsburgh, where he’d fell in love and gotten his heart torn up like tissue paper, even though it’s been on his mind like a piece of gum stuck in the crevices of his sole the last few months.

 

“You could have stayed. Penguins always need you.”

 

“I couldn’t. It’d—it’d be too much.”

 

Geno looks slightly alarmed. “Too much for knee?”

 

“No, I—” He lowers his gaze and concentrates on the ice cream mash his cup is holding. “It’d just be too much. I wanted to play. I  _still_ want to play. I think about what it’d be like if I didn’t have to retire, every day.”

 

“Sid.” Geno sounds devastated, and it’s all Sidney can do to keep from falling to pieces as he ducks his head lower. “Sid, I’m so sorry.”

 

“Me too.” He blinks several times, taking a deep exhale. “But. But I’m not unhappy with how things turned out. You deserve to be Captain, you really do.”

 

“I’m not kidding when I say I miss you,” Geno mumbles. “Like, when something new happening, I find new restaurant that open, I think how much you love it, but you’re already gone. Or sometimes after we lose, you know, drive home and halfway I realize I’m head to your house.”

 

Sidney lets out a sharp breath. “Geno—why didn’t you tell me this before? You could’ve—on the phone—”

 

Geno’s free hand is clenched like he’s restraining himself. “Tried to, but I’m scared. It’s big change, I know it’s big change, but then it really happen and you already settle in, have bakery, have…secret admirers, have happy life after hockey. So I just think, okay, no more room for me. So. It’s okay.”

 

“G, Oregon’s not keeping me hostage,” Sidney croaks. “I would’ve come back to visit if you asked. And there’s always room for you.”

 

“But I don’t want just visit. I want—” The topmost scoop of his ice cream decides to fall with a disappointing plop on his lap at that point, and Geno jerks away like he’s been scalded. “Oh, fuc—”

 

“Oh my God.” He starts throwing napkins at Geno, and Geno dabbing uselessly at his ripped, probably $500 jeans while trying to mouth at the rest of his ice cream cone to save it is so ridiculous that Sidney starts giggling despite himself. “I’m sorry—I’m not—I’m not laughing at you. It’s—God, I’m sorry, I need a minute—”

 

But Geno’s laughing too.

 

“I miss hear this,” Geno says. “I miss your laugh.”

 

It comes out easily, like he’s just stating another fact. The sky is blue. The earth is round. He misses Sidney’s laugh. Misses Sidney himself, even.

 

“Come on.” He pushes his chair back, grabbing his empty cup and stuffing the dirty napkins inside. “Let’s go to my place. You can borrow my pants.”

 

Geno gives him a dubious glance. “You think I fit?”

 

“You’re such an ass. You can take my sweatpants or go back to the airport in your underwear.”

 

They walk side by side down the avenue, with Sidney pointing out the sights along the way, from the candy store with its dusty, thousand-year-old taffy and the abandoned 1950s hole-in-the-wall lounge that is supposedly haunted. Geno nods along the whole time, like Cardwell’s town history genuinely fascinates him. Sidney shoves his hands deep in his pockets and ignores how Geno’s arm keeps brushing against his, and how much he wants to reach out and grab it.

 

 

-

 

 

“You’re flying back tomorrow, right? We can just toss it in the washer and I’ll have it ready for you tomorrow. Unless you can’t tumble dry it.” He knows all about Geno’s eclectic fashion choices, and he’s learned early on to just not ask. “I mean, I can mail it back to you when it finishes drying?”

 

“Sid, always think so much,” Geno tells him with a smile. “Gotta be Captain here too.”

 

“Old habits die hard,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Here give me your jeans. Oh—”

 

He turns around, and Geno is  _much_  closer than he’d expected. Even though he still towers over Sidney, he makes for a mournful sight in his ruined pants and airplane-wrinkled button-up.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“I—” Geno’s still staring at his feet. “You just tell me and I go back Pittsburgh, okay, Sid? Won’t bother you anymore. But want to know if biggest reason you move here because you don’t want to see me anymore. It’s okay if—if that’s why. Tanger say that you want to get away, that you told him it’s too much be here in the city. I just want to know if it’s me so I—”

 

“Geno,  _no_.” His feet may as well have been rooted to the ground. “I mean,  _yes_ it was too much. And maybe it was also because of you—but not because I hated you. I—I could never hate you.”

 

Geno remains silent.

 

“Did you think it was because of you the whole time?”

 

He shrugs, a small, uncertain motion. “You leave so fast. Don’t tell me until you already packed, but Flower knows about you move. And Tanger, and Phil, and Jake and baby Pens. Call less and less, think maybe is how you say you done.”

 

Sidney takes a faltering step towards Geno, then another, until he’s close enough to dare to reach for Geno’s wrists. Geno looks up then, eyes red-rimmed like he’s bracing for the worst.

 

“I left because I liked you,” Sidney says, his voice raw. He then amends, quickly, because ‘like’ isn’t enough to describe what he’s always felt about Geno. “I  _love_  you. And I was selfish. I didn’t want to stay because I knew you didn’t love me like that, and I didn’t want to wait for you to tell me that you didn’t need me anymore. So. I just. I don’t know. I ran, I guess.”

 

“Sid.  _Sid_.” Geno’s shaking his hands free from Sidney’s grasp, and Sidney takes half a step back as his heart plummets to his feet. But he’s only raising them to cup Sidney’s face, running his thumb tenderly across his cheek. “Sid, you—I  _always_ need you.”

 

And he very, very carefully places a kiss on Sidney’s open mouth.

 

“Sid?” Geno asks, when Sidney’s remains stock-still after he pulls back. “Sid, you—”

 

“Kiss me again,” he says, his arms snaking around Geno’s shoulders—he needs to touch—something,  _anything_. “Kiss me  _now_.”

 

Geno wastes no time in complying, too dazed to come up with anything snarky. He kisses Sidney like he’s been holding back for  _years_ , maybe even decades. Sidney’s fingers are tangling themselves in his hair and the moment he feels Geno’s arms under his ass, he jumps like he’s going for a celly, his thighs clinging to Geno’s waist.

 

“Shit—oh, fuck—” He knows he’s not light, but Geno only stumbles for a bit, pushing Sidney against the wall to right himself as he seals his mouth against Sidney’s neck. “Oh my God—oh my  _God—_ ”

 

“I see photo,” Geno says hoarsely. “Flower send Instagram, and I  _see_ , think, I  _hope_ so much, want it to mean what I think so bad—”

 

“Yes,  _yes_.” His brain is definitely melting at this point, and suddenly Geno’s jeans are  _impossible_ to unbutton. It’s fucking terrible. “Take your stupid ice cream pants off.”

 

Geno looks like he wants to say something about that, but Sidney quickly follows up with, “I want to blow you,” and it visibly seems like every single rational thought is flying out of Geno’s head.

 

He leads Geno down the hall and practically drags him onto the mattress. Geno’s stubble grazes against the soft part of his neck, trailing down to his collar, then chest as he mouths at his nipple, and Sidney knows he’s going to fucking regret the burn the next day but it’s so, so good and all he can think of is  _holy shit, this is really happening._

 

Sidney wouldn’t even categorize himself as out of practice. He’s pretty much never had a hands-on experience, because the NHL is so generous with providing him the privacy and support to do so. He feels like he’s skating blindfolded, headfirst into nowhere as he pulls down Geno’s waistband. But he knows what he likes, he’s seen enough videos to make it up as he goes along, so he sinks to his knees and takes as much of Geno as he can in his mouth, alternating between kitten licks and slow, long stripes from the base. His entire body feels like it’s shaking because for once, he  _doesn’t_ know what he’s doing. He only knows that he wants to touch and keep touching, knows the familiar thudding of his heart thundering loudly against his ribcage that he’s sure Geno must hear it. But Geno’s eyes stay closed, his hands gripping the sheets as he tries his best to breathe through his nose.

 

“Wait, wait,” Geno says suddenly. “Fuck, I’m close.”

 

Sidney hums, swirling his tongue on the tip of Geno’s cock until Geno pushes him off.

 

“Need minute—” He looks like he’d tumbled off two hills in a row. He thumbs at Sidney’s reddened mouth with a shaky hand, mesmerized. “Sid. Holy shit. Sid. You look—”

 

He probably looks like a mess. But Geno cups his face almost reverently, like he’s fragile.

 

“Look so gorgeous,” he says, like it’s simply the truth. “Always look so good.” Then he must’ve noticed that Sidney’s still achingly hard, his dick straining in his underwear and leaking against the fabric. “Up, up.”

 

“But you didn’t—”

 

“I take care of you,” Geno says, one hand reaching out to fumble blindly in the nightstand drawer. “Where’s—”

 

He really just wants Geno’s hands on him, anywhere, so he guides them, wrapping both their fingers around his already sensitive cock until Geno gets into a rhythm and all the noises Sidney can make is shallow gasps against Geno’s neck.

 

“Is this good?” Geno asks. He may as well have been fucking talking to Sidney from Mars. “Tell me what to do.”

 

“I—sometimes I like it—with my fingers. Inside,” Sidney pants out. He fishes the lube out from the drawers for Geno. “Geno, please—”

 

“Jesus.” Geno makes another hitching noise. “What you want?”

 

“Want you in me,” Sidney manages. 

 

He lets out an embarrassing whine when Geno’s hands leave, but Geno’s only flipping them so Sidney’s on his back. He thinks he hears the condom wrapper crinkling. “Sidney, can I—”

 

“Yes, yes,  _yes_.” He hooks one leg around Geno’s waist, his arms pulling Geno down by his shoulders desperately. “Hurry  _up_.”

 

The rest is a blur. Geno’s fingers are bigger than he had expected, the feeling electric when he crooks them and hits a particularly delicious spot and better than when he does it himself. Geno lets Sidney ride himself silly on his hand until Sidney grows frustrated with his own clumsy back-and-forth. He’s never had more than two, three fingers in him, but he sinks down on Geno’s cock, inch by inch, until he’s stretched and wet and full to the brim, until it feels like he’s swallowed the sky.It’s all he can do to squirm on Geno’s lap without losing his mind.

 

“Sid, Sid,” Geno says, his mouth against Sidney’s shoulders as he presses the hundredth, thousandth kiss on Sidney’s skin. “Love you, Sid.”

 

 

-

 

 

“Do you have to go?” Sidney says, whispering even though it’s only the two of them. He’s tucked in Geno’s arms, and every once in a while, he makes as if to move so Geno’s limbs don’t fall off, but Geno refuses to let go. “No games until Friday, right?”

 

“I’m tell Tanger you say that. Sidney Crosby say is okay for Captain to not go to practice, it’s okay not win Cup this year,” Geno teases, but he’s also grimacing at the prospect of leaving the bed. He nuzzles in, planting a tender kiss on Sidney’s shoulder. “Don’t want to go.”

 

“I want another Cup,” Sidney says stubbornly, mostly because he knows it’ll make Geno laugh.

 

It does. But Geno sobers quickly.

 

“Come back to Pittsburgh with me.”

 

Six months ago, if Geno had asked him the same question, he would’ve agreed in a heartbeat.

 

“And leave Dee to fend off Samantha by herself? She’ll never forgive me.” He sighs. “But I don’t want you to go back and forg—”

 

He stops short, biting his lips. He’s waited so long already.  

 

“I’ll come back.” It’s heavy, the way Geno says it. Like it’s more than a promise. “I come back in June and stay the whole summer.”

 

“You’ll be here for the 4th of July Carnival Bash then.”

 

Geno squints. “The what?”

 

“It’s a Cardwell Point thing. There’s fireworks and games. Apparently they’ll also bring in a Ferris wheel, but I don’t know how safe portable Ferris wheels are.”

 

“You not American.”

 

“Yeah, but I think I’m an honorary Cardweller now. Cardwellite. Cardwelly?” he grumbles. “Besides, I want to—never mind.”

 

“What?” A grin starts to bloom as he squeezes Sidney’s hips. “What you want?”

 

“Hey, quit it. I wanted to—I mean, I don’t know, I thought it might be fun to—”

 

“Come on, Sid,” Geno coaxes, his fingers dancing on the curve of Sidney’s waist.

 

“I wanted to make out with you when the fireworks go off,” he mutters, his words stringing together. “It’s a thing. It’s stupid. Forget I said it.”

 

But Geno only kisses him, his lips like honey. “Okay. No problem. And if I miss fireworks, guess have to bring Cup here, kiss you in front of that instead.”

 

“Okay,” Sidney says. His heart feels too full, and he wants to keep feeling like this into the next century. “It’s a deal.”

 

“What else you want do?” He brushes Sidney’s stray curl behind his ear. “Before I go back.”

 

“Dinner,” he decides, tangling his legs with Geno’s and rubbing their calves together. “But then I want to come back here.”

 

He wants to do everything with Geno. And for the first time in his life, he thinks he can.

 

 

-

 

 

The next morning, he sends Geno back to the airport with a full cheesecake. (Deidre doesn’t even bat an eyelash when Geno pre-orders three other specialty cakes—except for  _The Jack;_ he’d wrinkled his nose at the name—to be shipped to Pittsburgh.)

 

“Make sure rookies don’t take,” Geno promises.

 

“Be nice,” Sidney says against Geno’s mouth, when Geno kisses him goodbye for the fifth time in the car. “You should share with them.”

 

“Is my cake. Literally have my name.”

 

Geno ends up accidentally leaving the cake out in the dining nook for approximately fifteen minutes, when he gets called away by the coaches for an impromptu meeting. It gets demolished in less time than that, when a lone rookie coming back from the trainer’s room spies it and alerts five other players  _and_  an intern on the PR team. According to Tanger’s amused text, Geno had sulked for literal hours.

 

“Only save one slice,” he mopes on the phone. “Turn my back and is  _gone_.”

 

“Guess you have to come back for more,” Sidney smiles, not feeling very sorry at all.

 

 

-

 

 

The Penguins make it into the playoffs. It’s a good start to April.

 

“What if we made little Stanley Cup cookies,” he suggests to Deidre. “To show support.”

 

“I don’t know if people here will get it,” Deidre says. “But we can.”

 

No one in Cardwell Point gets it. Samantha from PTA buys three when she hears that the design had been Sidney’s idea, but she calls them ‘the little Harry Potter goblet biscuits.’

 

He’s trying to take a photo of a half-eaten cookie for Geno when Deidre asks, “So do you just watch hockey or do you actually play?”

 

“Oh, yeah, used to. All the time,” Sidney says, pressing send. “I played for the Pittsburgh Penguins. I was the Captain.”

 

Deidre rolls her eyes. “That’s funny. Because  _I_ also played for the Penguins as the Captain.”

 

“I  _knew_ it.” Sidney grins, barely managing to dodge the towel when she swats it at his arm.

 

(Two days later, a 15-year old tourist wanders into the store to buy a cookie and nearly drops all of his quarters when he realizes exactly  _who_ is giving him his change.

 

“Are you Sidney Crosby?” the boy squeaks. “Penguins Sidney Crosby?”

 

He can’t hold in his laughter when he sees the moment Deidre connects the dots and her jaw drops).

 

 

-

 

 

Deidre is Sidney’s unofficial date to the May neighborhood potluck. She begrudging makes just one chocolate cherry cake due to popular demand, but she complains the whole time.

 

It’s more fun that he’d anticipated—small talk, good beer, friendly faces, and just the right amount of whispered gossip over Samantha’s bake sale blunder involving store-bought scones pretending to be homemade. He also ends up offering babysitting services to about three separate families. It’s easy to imagine the rest of retired life being well, as easy as this.

 

He can’t wait to share it with Geno.

 

Sidney has one of the neighborhood kids, Sharon, in his arms. She’s busy chatting his ear off about her favorite animals at the lake (“Squirrels, but not gooses. They chase me and they got teeth and they’re too big.”) when someone taps Sidney’s shoulder.

 

“Hey,” the man says. He has a nice, shy smile when Sidney turns to him.  Behind them stands three guys in a huddle near the drinks table, whispering among each other with big grins and giving them thumbs-ups for some reason. “Uh, I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Jeremy.”

 

Sidney blinks. “Oh. Oh!”

 

So there’s that.

 

“I’m exhausted,” he tells Geno on the phone later that evening. “Samantha kept making me eat her potato salad. How’d the game go today? Sorry I missed half of it.”

 

“Wait, wait, go back.” It’s hilarious when Geno’s voice actually  _squeaked_ when Sidney mentioned that Jeremy is, in fact, a real person. “You meet  _stalker_?”

 

“He’s not a stalker. He’s nice. He teaches middle school.”

 

Geno is clearly distressed. “And what happen?”

 

“Don’t you want to hear about Samantha’s potato salad?”

 

“ _Sidney_.”

 

“Okay,” he laughs. “We just talked a little bit. He’s from a small town in Texas. He asked me if I wanted to get coffee. Doesn’t know hockey. He likes dogs, has a corgi named Biscuit.”

 

“ _Wait_ —”

 

“Then Deidre comes in and says, ‘Sidney’s boyfriend  _loves_ hockey.’ She’s had half a margarita. I think the whole backyard heard her. And then Samantha dropped her potato salad, but that might’ve been someone else.”

 

“Sid,” Geno groans. “I fly out tomorrow.”

 

“You are  _literally_ in the middle of playoffs. Do not come here.”

 

Deidre confirms that Samantha had been, in fact, the one who dropped the potato salad. But no one had really thought it a shame.

 

 

-

 

 

Geno shows up at Sidney’s front door exactly three days after the season ends. The Cup won’t arrive in Oregon until a month or two later, but Sidney surprises himself when he realizes that he could care less.

 

“Told you I come back in time,” Geno says, when he finally pulls back from kissing the breath out of Sidney. “I make you something”

 

It’s only then that Sidney notices the box Geno is holding. He pops the lid open, revealing a round, lumpy, very homemade thing that apparently had gotten an extra generous sprinkling of powdered sugar.

 

“Um, wow.” Sidney swallows, because otherwise he’s sure whatever is trying to bubble up his throat will just float right out of him, light as clouds, clear as bells, so the entire town, from Deidre to Samantha to Biscuit the Corgi, can see just how impossibly  _happy_  he is. “You really made it snow here.”

 

“Apple sharlotka. Is cake,” Geno tells him. “I call it  _The Sidney_.”

 

And. Well. How can he not kiss Geno again?

 

So he does, pulling Geno down by his lapels so he can press his lips against Geno’s once more, slow and sweet and unapologetically indulgent like cheesecake, right on his front porch in Cardwell Point.

 

 

-

 

 

**@DeesBakeryCafe**

_Lord Stanley’s come to Cardwell Point! Come by for a free Stanley Cup(cake) today from 1 – 2 PM, made by our very own Sidney Crosby (yes,_ that  _Sidney) and another special guest_ _👀_

 

-

 

 

 

 

_End_

 


End file.
